Science entrepreneurship training coming

A Group, Science Ambassadors Foundation will hold its Third Hen Science Festival from July 13 to 14 at the Federal Science Equipment Centre, Ijanikin, Lagos.

Speaking at a briefing to announce the event, its Coordinator, Mrs Chinyere Nnabugwu, said it was time to start Science-based entrepreneurship programmes to prepare Nigerians for greater achievements in science and technology.

she said most entrepreneurship programmes focus on vocational training such as bead-making, fashion design, hat making, fish farming, and the like, adding that scientific entrepreneurship programmes could help people to develop solutions to problems. She added that science teachers should be equipped to teach schoolchildren scientific principles in an interesting way.

She said: “If we want to become industrialised, how do we get that opportunity when every entrepreneurial programme is bead making, hat making, shoe making and so on? Science can be made into industrial products. We lack infrastructure, yet there is nothing you want to talk about infrastructure that is not science. Is it energy generation or road? Which one is not science? The midget you are using, is it not science? Your clothes, are they not science? Your shoes, everything, is science. China is investing heavily in science education. Teachers can learn ways to stimulate the enthusiasm of students in science. We want to show them that they do not need to wait for a fully-equipped laboratory to teach science in an interesting manner. Science is magic and it depends on how you will present it.”

The festival will feature a two-day training for about 5,000 at the Federal Science Equipment Centre, Ijanikin, Lagos, which would expose teachers to interesting and practical ways of teaching sciences to pupils, how to make instructional materials from resources in their environment, and how scientific concepts apply to daily living in the society.

The science teachers expected to attend would be drawn from private schools in Lagos and its environs under the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS).

Lending support for the event, Patron of the foundation, Prof Oluwole Familoni, is optimistic that the training would improve teaching and learning of sciences in schools.

“I am hoping and looking forward to this training that it will be a beginning of something good for private schools where teachers will be well trained, be able to assist their students,” he said.

The chemist, who is from the University of Lagos (UNILAG), also underscored the importance of practical demonstration to science education.

“Is there alternative to practical? NO. It is either you have practical or you do not have practical; there is no alternative,” he said.

Outgoing president of NAPPS, Lagos Chapter, Mr Yomi Otubela, said the training would add value to teachers and pupils.

“We all know that majority of teachers and students, even schools are not doing enough in term of practical science classes. So with this foundation, we will be able to teach science beyond laboratory, environment. We will be able to attain to science as a day- to- day activities of the children, be able to take science to homes and even to the market place relating happenings to how science works,” he said.

The Southwest Zonal President of NAPPS, Mrs Basirat Alimi, said there were plans to hold another training by the foundation during the Southwest zonal meeting of NAPPS in October.

“Apart from Lagos, we are planning to do it other states. We are having our 10th anniversary by October 13- 15 in Oyo State at Lead City University, Ibadan. We want to use that opportunity because PTA and students representatives and all the proprietors will be there. We are expecting about 5,000 proprietors in that programme,” she added.